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By Travis As a child, when I was sick, I would lay in bed watching old black and white shows on the family TV. This was before cable so I watched whatever was showing. Also of note, the family TV had four stations. I watched a number of police stories as that is what seemed to be on TV in the early afternoon. I enjoyed the suspense and the angles. The drama. Most of the shows had a scene where an inmate would trade secrets, privileges, or wealth for cigarettes. The money system in jail is cigarettes. In my school, the money system is paper. |
Category Archives: Current Affairs
Testing the Limit
By Rob
Great investments have been made to collect and use data. The role of assessments and use of student data has shifted and it has changed the nature of education.
The standardized test, Washington’s Measurement of Student Progress, is analyzed extensively to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind. It is used to identify schools as “failing to meet adequate yearly progress.” It is used to rank-order schools. New metrics which control for the impact of poverty use this data to compare effectiveness among districts. This assessment comes at a great cost- financial, time, lost instruction, grading, and tools for analyzing. The information gained from it could be found with a smaller sample size and at a lower cost.
The Measurement of Academic Progress (MAP) tracks student growth across a school year. This test is completed by students on a laptop in a separate classroom. Our technology and curriculum coach devotes weeks to setting up the computers, scheduling, and proctoring each class. The list of goals compiled for each student is exhausting and includes standards not covered for months or years or, depending on the curriculum, not taught at all. I am pleased when the assessment result matchs my analysis of the student but often it doesn’t.
I get very little actionable intelligence from the results of my MSP or MAP scores. But increasingly I have to answer for the results.
The emphasis on testing extends far beyond MSP and MAP. Over the course of the school year my students must complete 32 mandated “common assessments” with the score recorded into a database. How the scores are used I have no idea. Increasingly these assessments feel more like an audit of my teaching than a tool for improving student learning.
Students also complete regular math and spelling quizzes. This is an additional 85 assessments. While these tests tie closely to the content they contribute to the culture of ‘no child left untested.’ My students are expected to demonstrate their proficiency 117 times throughout a 180 day school year. They are second graders. In third grade the assessment load will increase.
This certainly wasn’t my experience in elementary school. It wasn’t even the experience of my students ten years ago. And this emphasis on testing isn’t preparing my students for adulthood: The last assessment I took was four years ago.
One form of assessment has been overlooked by policy makers and more attention should be paid. It is the teacher’s ongoing examination of student progress and understanding. Teachers use this information to inform their practice and to adjust lesson pacing. It gives teachers an indication of what to re-teach or where to extend. It allows teachers to identify struggling students while there is time to arrange extra support. It requires acute observation and meaningful interactions with students. This process is at the heart of teaching; it’s where the magic happens. It happens every day… except when we're testing.
New Standards, Part 2
By Mark
One of the wheels I reinvent each August is this chart wherein I build the scope and sequence for my courses, identify the timelines as well as major formative and summative assessments, then list which EALRs/GLEs those assessments address so that I can be sure I've fulfilled my obligation. Sounds fun, eh? Yeah, I'm a fun guy.
As I posted recently, the State of Washington is shifting from the old standards for Language Arts (farewell EALRs and GLEs) to the new Common Core standards. Ultimately, I like the wording of these "new" standards better (and for some reason, I can just understand many of them better). There are changes, to be sure, but even within those changes I can easily see ways that "what I already do" could be tweaked a bit to fit that instructional goal.
This post, however, is my attempt to help illuminate the complexity within teaching that these standards illustrate. (I cannot even begin to imagine what this same post from an elementary teacher might look like!)
The Skills Gap…again
By Mark
NBC News ran a story last night about Siemens and their 3400 un-fillable jobs despite an abundance of job-seekers out there right now. The segment (embedded below) also featured small businesses who also have an abundance of openings–one owner noting something to the effect of "we can buy all the equipment we want, but it's no good if there is no one skilled to use it."
The piece discussed the "skills gap" between what the jobs require and what the prospective employees were trained for or capable of doing… and thankfully stopped just short of blaming American public school teachers for causing this, the failing economy, or current debt crisis in Europe.
The solution to the skills gap, according to the report, was more training (not testing) in math and science. Okay, that's fine. But how about training in skills?
Several of us here at SfS have beaten the drum about the need for more investment in vocational and career and technical education at the high school level. This got me thinking: what if we took every penny currently dedicated to statewide testing and test prep at all levels and instead invested it in vocational and CTE programming starting even well before high school? What about devoting funding toward funneling kids toward voc/tech speciality schools after high school instead of always talking about "college readiness" as if enrollment in a four-year is the only indicator of a school's success?
Alas, in a cursory search, I was unable to find clear numbers about the cost to taxpayers to adminster and assess all the state tests. Certainly, vocational and CTE programs can be quite expensive due to specialized equipment or facilities needs, but still, I feel like when we look at the problems facing the country, we're mismanaging our investment.
One of the first and most important lessons I learned as a pre-service teacher was to examine the needs of my students and adjust my response, rather than just dish them a canned curriculum regardless of their needs. When I consider what our economy and country apparently need from public schools, it isn't kids who can pass tests. We need kids with skills… and report after report highlights that skills gap. Our schools apparently are not arming the emerging workforce with the tools they need to be successful.
Instead of using tests to punish schools for what we're supposedly not doing, why not fund programming to help schools do what we ought to be doing?
(Sorry about the ads in the video below. I usually open another window and check my email, but you can multitask however you choose.)
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
New Beginning
School starts in one week for me and I am so excited. I have been teaching first grade for 20 years and each year is so very exciting and wonderful, I can hardly sleep at night in the anticipation. There are currently 26 students assigned to our room. It will be interesting to see what “new” accronym will be applied to our teaching. There has been some talk among administration that we should begin PBIS, RTI, and our district will be doing TPEP. Ahhh, why or why do we educators always look so hopefuly to some new inovative idea that will sovle all of our problems?? Have you ever had the luxury of strolling about a book store and paruse the shelves of books written by well meaning people that describe just how, if we would only use this method or intervention each child would learn, all your behavior/discipline problems would melt away and everything would be just fine?
Whenever anyone decides what make a good teacher the conversation seems to never end, there is always one more dimension to consider. There are just too many layers, partly due to the fact that we have so many different types of learners that bring to the class a different culture for learing. There couldn’t possibly be one solution, yet we continue to search.
Some of our teachers went to a training for Read Naturally – well, what say we Teach Naturally. We have a set of clearly defined standards, many districts have taken the time to define what it looks like when a student has met the standard and we teachers are trained on how to teach the concepts and strategies so students can understand and apply the learning – Is it asking too much for policy makers and other legislation to stop complicating the issue of teaching and allow us to do our jobs? Knowing I will have 26, or possibly more, students that look to me for understanding in math, science, literacy, social studies, and social skills, I am aware that I will need to have many and various strategies to engage, challenge and teach them. Once we have met and I get a clear picture of what it is they currently know and can do, I will need to develop lessons that clearly outline the progression of learning that will allow the students to achieve the standards for first grade. They will need opportunity learn, time to practice, authentic, formative, summative assessments with feedback. In otherwords, they will need to know the learning target, and how to achieve the target.It is challenging, but so very worthwhile when they discover they know a new concept or have met a particularly difficult standard.
One year I had a student that seemed to have all the pieces together(phonics, phonemic awareness, etc) that would allow him to begin to read, yet it just wasn’t happening. After several different strageties and approaches, we found a book that was of a rebus style that he really liked and began to read the book – he was so excited that he took it home to show his family how he could now read. When he returned to school the next day, he read the entire book to me – then with a large smile he looked at me as said,”Isn’t it cool how I taught myself how to read?” Yes, that is was very cool! Learning begins with the learner, the key is having the resources and time to know the student and help design a path of learning for that unique individual student, not trying to wrap some acronym that represents a “researched based” program around the student.
Our Problem is Poverty, not Schools
By Tracey
In continuing with the Save Our Schools March events, since it's still so fresh in my mind, I'm posting the speech Diane Ravitch gave at the rally on July 30. She's not Matt Damon, so you may have missed her. (I was deeply touched by the words Matt Damon spoke and am grateful he came. But, I will assume you won't need me to hear his speech.) Ravitch also spoke at the two-day conference leading up to the rally. Her speech at the rally was shortened dramatically, as it should. What you missed was a historical account of how our education system has been "in crisis" since 1910. It's apparently what we do; we claim our schools are in crisis, and then make irrational decisions about how to fix them. Anyone ever read Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine? A hundred years of crises should raise some flags. But, the greatest offender at this point in time, is pretending that poverty isn't an issue.
Stop Digging
By Mark
I came across this Washington Post re-post via A 21st Century Union, a teacher blog rooted in Maryland. The piece in the Post, in a nutshell, illuminates a simple reality about the recent PISA education rankings wherein the US was situated far from the top. The maxim "if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging" forms the root of the argument.
The hole? The fact that the rest of the world is catapulting past American education on international measures.
What has dug this hole? Kevin Welner, author of the post, states it clearly: we are in the position we are in because the current generation of tested students came of age in an education system dominated by NCLB mandates centered on test-mania. We dug our hole with high stakes tests and an obsession with scores and sanctions.
The result of that test-mania is obvious: we have not gained ground in student achievement, we've lost ground. The proof is in the data. Since data analysis is all the rage in education, we should be abandoning what clearly doesn't work, right? Logic says we ought to stop digging.
Here's the link to the post, it is worth a read. I know I'm ready to put down this shovel.
Collaboration
By Mark
This video was emailed to me by a colleague…if you have a few minutes and are willing to maintain a sense of humor, it's worth a look:
Now, I wouldn't post this if I was just trying to be subversive or funny. In any satire or parody, there is always a kernel of truth (heck, sometimes a whole cob of truth).
I truly enjoy authentic collaboration. In fact, I believe that my freedom to collaborate is actually what has kept me in education this long–if I were isolated in my own classroom all day with my only human contact being with 14-year-olds (who some contend are not quite yet human beings) I don't think I'd have lasted.
Because I get to collaborate and actually team-teach in my current assignment, I have grown as an educator and my satisfaction in my job has grown as well. There is something powerful about working closely with a like-minded educator or team of educators who share common philosophies, attitudes and dedication to increasing student learning. We challenge each other, support each other, and learn from each other. I am a better teacher because I have collaborated. My students perform better because I have collaborated.
Alas, like so many fads in education, Collaboration has become a four-letter-word to some, and I think it is in no small way due to the kinds of situations parodied in that YouTube video above.
“Jersey Shore” is not real.
No, I'm not kidding. It isn't real. Those people auditioned, were hired, relocated into that gaudy house, and then filmed. The episodes aren't real, either… No, I'm not kidding. Those episodes are edited together based on a storyline the writers create by putting The Situation and his crew into situations where the writers know how they will react. It isn't "real."
It is amazing how much convincing it has taken to prove to my freshmen that the Jersey Shore is not real. These are the same kids who have no problem suspending disbelief long enough to just accept that Peter Parker can climb walls when he wears the right spandex suit but who cannot just accept that the animals on Animal Farm speak English and build a windmill.
These conversations help to illustrate a critical shift which ought to be happening in literacy instruction in American schools: rather than studying literary works, we need to be studying literary processes.
- We need to study the process by which 360 hours of Jersey Shore footage gets edited down to 44 minutes for a one-hour weekly episode.
- More importantly, we need to understand the process of acculturation and normalization which occurs in a viewer when they watch entertainment labeled as reality.
- We need to study the process by which lighting, angle, score and juxtaposition are used by news organizations to communicate a message beyond the news.
- More importantly, we need to study the subtle and not-so-subtle biases which shape the decision-making about what makes air and what doesn't.
- We need to help young readers learn to discern which sources on the internet are valid and which are not, and even what we mean by "valid."
Are these lessons more or less important than Shakespeare or great novels and poetry?
As with the television news, whose producers must pare hours upon hours of worthy news into 20-22 minutes of air time (including sports and weather), when we must choose what literacy lessons to keep and what to cull for our limited amount of instructional time, on what should we base that decision?
Building a Hybrid Virtual School
By Mark
A colleague of mine posed an interesting proposition lately. Like many school districts, mine is apparently toying with the idea of a hybrid virtual/brick-and-mortar kind of school-within-a-school. The idea is that the curriculum would be administered face-to-face when necessary and via web interface when necessary, so this colleague of mine was casting out a few lines to see if any of us would bite.
I've voiced interest in participating, but have concerns and questions.
A few years ago, I was part of starting a small learning community "school-within-a-school" of sorts in my high school, and it is still operating, but that endeavor was small by comparison with what my colleague has in mind. I am wondering what models of this kind of hybrid exist, what are the benefits or shortcomings, and what the best course would be.
I'm definitely in the learning stages here. Sure, I can Google it or read some journal articles, but that only gives part of the story.
So, SFS readers and contributors: what do you know, or what advice do you have about building this kind of educational opportunity? If you are a brick-and-mortar teacher, what concerns would you have for a hybrid or virtual school? What hopes would you have?